


The Future (Doesn't Scare Me at All)

by Ange_de_la_Mort



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Gen, Minor Character Death, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:28:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25788859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ange_de_la_Mort/pseuds/Ange_de_la_Mort
Summary: As they promised each other, Vincent and Red XIII, now Nanaki, return to the same spot year after year to reminisce about their friends, their lives and the eternity that will wait for one of them ...
Relationships: Red XIII | Nanaki & Vincent Valentine
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	The Future (Doesn't Scare Me at All)

**Author's Note:**

> My piece for the FF7 Lifestream Zine, which was a great experience and also the chance to talk more about two characters that really need more screen time together.

"You didn't come to his funeral." These are the first words Red XIII - no, Nanaki, by now it's Nanaki - addresses to him when they meet at their usual place: a cliff outside of Midgar, offering a panoramic view of the ever-changing city. "Did nobody call you?"

Vincent hesitates for a moment before answering, and instead contemplates the changes that are gradually introduced to the city every year, the newly built houses and streets that, after the almost fall of Meteor and the break-out of Geostigma, could finally be used by people again as if nothing had ever happened. Nevertheless... Midgar will probably never again be the eternally shining and radiant city it used to be.

He notices that Nanaki is about to repeat his question and says: "They did. Of course they did. But I felt it would have been wrong to go." Now he looks at Nanaki for the first time with a smile on his face. "I think he would have wanted me to remember him the way he was."

Nanaki returns his gaze calmly and approaches him quietly and without a word. And yet Vincent can almost hear his responses out loud. "Do you even remember him?" and "You haven't met up with any of the others in almost ten years" and "You've been avoiding them". And yes, if he's honest with himself, this last statement is actually true.

After Lucrecia's death, he hasn't been interested in the world for almost twenty years. And now that he's a part of it again, it seems she's changing far too fast.

Everything changes. Only he doesn't. He and Nanaki, or at least Nanaki won't be changing for many years and decades to come. But the others? They change. They grow older and older, they grow tired, and one day they won't wake up in the morning anymore.

For someone like Vincent, for whom there will always be a new morning, the thought is unbearable, even if he can't say exactly whether it scares him or whether he is jealous. He only knows that he would not bear to look the others in the eye and instinctively wonder how long they still have, while Vincent himself moves through the years unchanged and unaged.

Both Nanaki and he talk very little with each other on that day, each indulging in their own thoughts.

But Vincent is sure that with Cid Highwind's death, a chain reaction is set off for their own little group, one that is bound to be enough to make it feel as if the planet is only changing even more quickly than before.

___

And that is exactly what happens. Since that one day, it seems that every year something new is going on, something not as generic as global change and the discovery of new or long forgotten technologies. No, every year there seems to be something worth reporting about.

Nanaki tells him about the others every time. Vincent always listens when he talks about Cloud, who takes the now grown Denzel with him on his travels. Then he hears about Barret and Aerith's mother, who have found their own little family together with Marlene. He also hears about Yuffie and how she has taken over the leadership in Wutai ever since her father's death.

In return, Vincent always tells him about the world outside, about the new energy sources that have been found - solar and wind and water - or about the first rocket that actually landed on the moon. He tells him about the world, which he observes with curiosity and at the same time with exhaustion, a world that is impersonal enough to ensure that he no longer ties himself to anyone he would lose sooner or later, but which nevertheless triggers emotions and feelings for all the places he visits and all the people he meets.

Sometimes he looks at Nanaki for a long time and thinks about all the years that only the two of them would still be here, when everything out there in the world has already vanished.  _ Things change. People change. But not you, and not me. _

Somehow the thought is comforting.

___

It is a thought that Vincent can cling to for a few years, a kind of constant in an ever-changing world. Something he can rely on more than the fact that day follows night.

Because if he is the only one who does not change, who never ages and who will experience the death of the planet for himself, then what is the point of wanting to commit to this world? To a world in which he could only stay in one place for a few years or spend this time with a small circle of people before it becomes apparent that he is not the same as they are. Before he is asked to leave - peacefully or violently - because he is different? Wouldn't it almost be wiser and more humane to go back to Nibelheim to lie down in his coffin and close his eyes in the hope of falling asleep one day and not waking up again?

That would be a self-chosen solitude at least. Because Vincent has now understood that he doesn't mind being alone. On the contrary. In fact, he enjoys it, enjoys the silence and the peace and the knowledge that he has no obligation to rectify every wrong in the world and to turn every suffering into happiness (although of course he  _ tries _ to do so).

But faced with a solitude that he does not choose for himself ... he might even be afraid.

_ What did Nanaki once call it? _ he wonders as he climbs to the top of the cliff.  _ The creature inside his heart that casts pitch-black shadows over every thought ... ? Perhaps it lives in all of us. _

He plans to ask Nanaki about it later, but to his surprise, Nanaki has arrived before him and is already waiting for him. That's new, a  _ change _ to usual, and maybe the creature's pitch-black claw is clutching around Vincent's heart.

When Nanaki turns his gaze to him, Vincent already knows he won't like what he has to say. And indeed: "I have met someone," Nanaki says, his tail skidding restlessly back and forth, whipping across the ground. "She is like me. I thought I was the only one left, but she is like me!"

And even as Vincent congratulates his friend , he wonders if the emptiness in his chest is already a sense of loneliness.

___

He doesn't want to come back to their meeting place. Not this year. Maybe never again. The worry that he'll spend the day there alone, waiting all by himself for someone who's started a new life by now, dwells deeply in his heart, and he tells himself that just staying away from the place would at least be *his* choice for a lonely existence.

Of course, he can't bring himself to do it.

To his surprise, Nanaki is here earlier than him once again, and this time he's not alone: two tiny creatures trudge around him on four paws, clumsily and boisterously. Nanaki looks at them with pride, and when he hears Vincent coming, they do too.

"Your children?" asks Vincent as he sits down next to him and, for better or worse, allows them to climb onto his lap and rub their little heads against his hand and chest. "Why did you bring them here?"

"I wanted them to meet you."

"Why?" he asks and cannot help but sound bitter and angry.  _ Are you rubbing in my face that everything can change from one day to the next? _

Nanaki looks at him long and deeply, as if he were looking into his soul. "Because I want to ask you to take care of them when I am no longer alive."

Vincent opens his mouth but doesn't make a sound. For the first time he looks at the little creatures that are hardly bigger than normal cats, sees their shining eyes and their flaming manes. "That is a heavy burden," he says softly.

"I know. But you are my friend. I trust you. With my life and with theirs."

Even as he searches for an answer, he himself notices how the trust and warmth of the two children soften his heart, and how they sneak their way inside, even though he has tried not to open it to anyone for all these years and decades because of the fear of being left alone.

Nanaki's children curl up on his lap and start snoring softly.

Vincent looks at them for a long time.

_ Things change. People change. Maybe even I do. _

And somehow the thought of the future no longer scares him.


End file.
